Dubai tea trade grows 62% amid recession
Dubai tea trade grows 62% during the first half of this year
Dubai: The Dubai Tea Trading Centre (DTTC), a dedicated platform for tea trade, blending and packaging that offers professional advisory and tea tasting services, has recorded 62 per cent growth to 4.2 million kilos during the first half of this year, compared with 2.6 million in the first half of last year.
The DTTC is an initiative of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC).
"Although this has been a challenging year for the tea trade worldwide, DTTC has seen exceptional growth," said Sanjay Sethi, Director of DTTC.
"Our continuous efforts to increase trade through DTTC have proved fruitful. The value-added services such as blending and packaging in our new facility are making DTTC more appealing for international tea traders.
The Centre is growing consistently, with increased transactions and major global tea producers establishing their base here.
"As we work closely with tea producers, merchant exporters and buyers to further grow the volume of trade through the region, we are committed to strengthening Dubai's position as a major hub for global tea trade," Sethi added.
The DTTC currently stocks teas from 13 producing countries, with plans to expand its services and the number of tea-producing countries trading through its platform.
However, the tea trade through Dubai suffered a drop in the first half of 2009, reflecting the global decline in tea production. The tea trade in Dubai fell to 48.8 million kilos in the first five months of 2009, compared with 66.6 million kilos in the same period of 2008. Dubai's strategic location that serves 1.5 billion people is helping it to become a natural tea trading hub, although the region does not produce any. As a result, over-reliance on imports keep the city vulnerable to the fluctuations of world food trade.
"Overwhelming import dependence makes food security highly vulnerable. This situation becomes worse when supply shortages occur due to adverse production trends globally and in main exporting countries," said Samir Pradhan, Senior Researcher at Gulf Research Center.
The shortfall of teas produced this year has generally been affected due to drought and delayed rainfall in major tea-producing countries such as Sri Lanka and India.
Why do you think tea trading in the UAE has increaed? Have you noticed a change in price?
